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Belle
: “''Some people use their imagination.” : ―Belle to Gaston Princess Belle is the female protagonist of Disney's 1991 film, ''Beauty and the Beast and its 1997-98 direct-to-video saga midquels, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas and Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World. Belle is the 5th official Disney Princess. From 1991 to 2010, she was voiced by Paige O'Hara in most of her appearances, with the exception of House of Mouse (where she was voiced by Jodi Benson). In 2011, Julie Nathanson replaced O'Hara as Belle's official voice actress, beginning with Kinect Disneyland Adventures. A stage version of the 1991 film debuted on Broadway on April 18, 1994, with the 'live' role of Belle originated by Susan Egan (who would later go on to voice Megara in Hercules) and finalized by Anneliese van der Pol. In 2014, it was announced that Disney will be doing a live action remake of Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson portraying Belle. Personality Belle has gained a significant amount of intelligence over the years due to her love of books, providing her with an amazing vocabulary, active imagination, and an open mind. She is very confident and outspoken in her opinions, and seldom likes being told what to do. Despite all this, she does not have very many friends due to her smarts and being a free thinker. Unlike most characters in the film, Belle isn't concerned about hers or other's appearances, and is able to look past how people appear and into their hearts. This is how Belle managed to break the Beast's enchantment, and restore love and laughter to the castle. Belle is somewhat a women's-libber for her time and refuses to be mistreated, undermined, humiliated, demeaned or controlled by any man, especially and specifically Gaston (in fact, he makes it quite clear that his ideal marriage with Belle includes her having "six or seven" good-looking sons with him, massaging his feet, cooking his dinner, scrubbing the floors, doing dirty work and, above all, no reading, as he considers intelligence in women to be ridiculous; this is taken one step further in his song in the musical in which he sings that womankind "occasionally" serves a purpose in marriage, specifically "extending the family tree"). However, Belle willingly listens to, looks up to and admires her father Maurice and considers the opinions and directions of the Beast, because they are both able to treat her as an equal (the Beast eventually learned how throughout the course of the film), while Gaston views Belle and all women of the village as property. She is quite obstinate when it comes to stating her points, upholding her opinions, and maintaining her ideas. Even though Belle had said in the film that she dream in adventure, she has also stated that she also wishes for a friend who accepts her for who she is, because of everyone in town criticize her because of how she does her own thing and they don't understand why, which makes her feel that she does not fit in but despite this even when people gave her a hard time she never changed, but came to a better understanding of herself; which made the biggest difference by her breaking the spell and charming the Beast just by being herself. In the Disney Comics New Adventures of Beauty and the Beast, set a few years before the events of the first film, Belle was also shown to be somewhat ignorant in her views, refusing to associate herself with the boys in her village due to unfortunate experiences with them in the past (then slightly amending it to exclude her father after the latter jokingly asked their pet pig Pierre if he heard Belle consider him no different than the pig). The same serial also implies that despite her love of fairy tales, she herself did not believe in the supernatural, as when trying to explore a certain part of the Black Forest before encountering an owl, she mentioned in her thoughts she knew there weren't any mythical creatures in there. Belle's personality transforms throughout the film. At first, she frequently dreams about a life of adventure and romance, not realizing that sometimes adventures might take a turn for the worst. As Belle begins to spend more time with the Beast, and their relationship blossoms into a strong friendship, she begins to fall in love with him without realizing it. As she matures during the course of her imprisonment, her love for the Beast breaks the enchantment. Belle realizes that having dreams is great, but sometimes you need to look beyond them and find what you're truly looking for.